Berkshire Athenaeum

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Berkshire Athenaeum, 1876 building.

Berkshire Athenaeum, entry to 1876 building.

The Berkshire Athenaeum is a public library (1872) based on a previously private athenaeum, and now located at 1 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the Berkshires, USA. Like many New England libraries, the Berkshire Athenaeum started as a private organization.

A private Public Library Association was founded in 1850. The name was later changed to the Berkshire Athenæum. Later still, Thomas F. Plunkett, Calvin Martin and Thomas Allen, were "instrumental in forming it into a free library." "In 1874, by means of a bequest from Phinehas Allen, and the gift of [the 1876] building from Thomas Allen, the Berkshire Athenaeum was placed upon a firm foundation." ^[1]

In 1903, the Berkshire Athenaeum assumed the responsibility for the newly created Berkshire Museum, and was both a public library and museum until the museum spun off in 1932. The Berkshire Athenaeum is now Pittsfield's public library and contains a collection of more than 150,000 items. The library's special collections on local history, genealogy, local author Herman Melville, and other Berkshire authors are some of the best in the northeast.

Designed by New York architect William Appleton Potter, the original Berkshire Athenaeum building was erected in 1874-1876 as a gift from railway magnate and native son Thomas Allen. It is in the High Victorian Gothic style, constructed of dark blue limestone from Great Barrington, red freestone from Longmeadow and red granite from Missouri. The 1876 building became the Berkshire County Registry of Deeds in 1975 when the Berkshire Athenaeum moved to the current library building two doors away.